DOUBLE TAKE

Ref with one eye sues Big Ten, Delany for firing

July 18, 2006|By Tribune

In a suit filed Monday, former Big Ten referee James Filson of Bolingbrook accuses conference Commissioner Jim Delany of firing Filson after the Big Ten was made aware that the ref had been working with only one eye for five years, including an Orange Bowl and another bowl. In the suit, Filson says he lost vision in his right eye in 2000 after "missing a step, falling and hitting his eye on the corner of a table." A prosthetic replacement was put in and Filson kept working. Filson says David Parry, the conference's coordinator of officials, told him to "work hard at recovery and be able to return for the upcoming season" and his subsequent performance reviews were better than "he received in the eight years preceeding the loss of his eye." The suit contends that after a reporter notified Michigan coach Lloyd Carr of Filson's condition, Carr told Delany, who then fired the ref because he "did not have two eyes" and "failed to fulfill the minimum physical requirements," according to the suit.